In some ants, bees, and wasps, workers kill or "police" male eggs laid by other workers in order to maintain the reproductive primacy of the queen. Kin selection theory predicts that multiple mating by the queen is one factor that can selectively favor worker policing. This is because when the...

In polygynous (multiple queens per nest) colonies of social insects, queens can increase their reproductive share by laying more eggs or by increasing the proportion of eggs that develop into reproductive individuals instead of workers. We used polymorphic microsatellite loci to determine the...

Although workers might increase their inclusive fitness by favoring closer over more distant kin, evidence suggest that nepotism generally does not occur within colonies of social insects. It has been suggested that this may be due to the cost of recognition errors. We tested whether recognition...